Saturday, June 17, 2006

The Struggle to Recapture our Soul

George Bush loves being the war president. He loves popping up in Baghdad for a few hours of male camaraderie with the newly-appointed Iraqi Premier al-Maliki or strutting across an aircraft carrier in a tight-fitting flight-suit. He loves showing Papa-Bush that he can stay the course when things get tough and that he won’t squander his "political capital" by "cutting and running". But things are going the wrong way in Iraq and, by many accounts, the war is already lost. Conservatives are jumping off the bandwagon faster than liberals and Bush’s approval ratings continue to plummet. Retired General William Odom summarized the Iraq misadventure best when he said, "It is the greatest strategic disaster in US history." Bush’s photo-op in Baghdad only proves the wisdom of Odom’s judgment. What looked like a triumphant visit by the Commander-in-Chief to the heart of a war zone, was actually a desperate attempt to garner support for a failed mission...